{"id":635564,"date":"2026-04-29T03:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T03:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/635564\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T03:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T03:48:08","slug":"daredevil-born-again-recap-season-2-episode-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/635564\/","title":{"rendered":"Daredevil: Born Again recap – season 2, episode 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of all the plot threads coiling around and through Daredevil: Born Again, the one I\u2019ve followed with the most interest is the tempestuous morality of Daniel Blake, Michael Gandolfini\u2019s Deputy Mayor Of Communications for Mayor Fisk (Vincent D\u2019Onofrio). Watching Blake being devoured by his conscience as Kingpin consolidated power over New York City has been fascinating. Not just because it\u2019s good character work\u2014it is, and it\u2019s more gripping than what we\u2019ve seen from Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) this season\u2014but because Gandolfini renders Blake\u2019s inevitable fall with a sense of dignity and tragedy that complements Born Again as a Marvel series that continues to punch above its dramatic weight.<\/a>.Vanessa Fisk (Ayelet Zurer) is gone, and her murderous husband is spinning out. Now is the worst time for a Kingpin sycophant to learn decency. Or is it better late than never?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Given where Blake ends up at the end of \u201cThe Hateful Darkness,\u201d I believe it is the latter. He\u2019s been slowly pivoting from Fisk at least since his budding friendship with reporter BB Urich (Genneya Walton) gave him something else to worry about besides making Hizzoner look good. What was it about BB that appealed to him? Puppy love? Respect and admiration? Both? This week, Blake gave BB his only Get Out Of Kingpin Jail Card, even though he knew it\u2019d sign his death warrant. BB\u2019s gutsy anti-Fisk videos all but guaranteed an abrupt halt to her career, either through an extended stay in Kingpin\u2019s vigilante prison or an even longer dirt nap. Now, she can continue her good work thanks to Blake\u2019s last gift as her friend. As he said to BB before sending her away, it was the right thing to do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, with righteousness in his heart and a curse on his lips, Blake reports to Buck (Arty Froushan) and faces the music. \u201cFuck you,\u201d he says as Buck, with whom he had recently developed an oddly cute fraternal connection, puts on his murder gloves and sets about protecting Kingpin\u2019s rule. Interspersed with the episode\u2019s other goings-on, this violent beat carries a sense of earth-shifting power that Born Again has strangely been unable to generate for its leads (the late Mrs. Fisk notwithstanding). The never-ending aspect of superhero stories must be to blame. At any rate, Blake\u2019s defiance is compressed into brutal bursts as \u201cThe Hateful Darkness\u201d assembles the show\u2019s ensemble for the finale. This frantic intercutting, which usually occurs when Born Again reaches for its next dramatic summit, avoids blunting the impact of Buck\u2019s parting shot. Daniel Blake is sent to the hereafter, and Born Again is down yet another valuable player.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vanessa and Daniel\u2019s untimely departures leave a void that begs to be filled in Born Again\u2019s third season. (Arty Froushan, consider this your cue to shine.) For now, we\u2019re left with character business that hasn\u2019t been nearly as engrossing, such as the return of Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), now ostensibly a moral foil for Matt Murdock when she isn\u2019t wearing wigs. We\u2019re well familiar with the strife within their Resistance by now. Daredevil is stuck in that tedious will-he\/won\u2019t-he cycle that plagues most \u201cgray\u201d heroes. Will he, an outlaw vigilante, forsake his morality and kill his enemies, who have repeatedly proven themselves worthy of his wrath? Enemies like Bullseye (Wilson Bethel), whom DD cut loose this week to balance the scales after killing Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson)? What about Kingpin? We know he won\u2019t. Still, this feeble internal strife generates friction between him and Karen, who serves as the season\u2019s ersatz Punisher with Jon Bernthal presumably busy filming his one-shot<\/a> and a much-hyped Spider-Man appearance.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Hateful Darkness\u201d is a big Karen episode. Beyond putting her in the midst of a media firestorm\u2014after being pinched by Powell (Hamish Allan-Headley) in last week\u2019s snoozer cliff-hanger\u2014it gestures toward the moments that define her as she clashes with the season\u2019s shadiest players. Notably, those moments come from the last Daredevil series, which casts a harsh light on what\u2019s been missing from this character in Born Again: any sense that Karen Page exists beyond plot function or ginning up more enmity between Murdock and Fisk. Not helping matters is her hearing in Fisk\u2019s kangaroo court, designed to funnel his enemies into secret prisons under the guise of justice. She\u2019s bait meant to draw out Daredevil.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her early jail scene with Kingpin tries to shift this thinking, with a glowering Fisk evoking the shooting death of James Wesley (Toby Leonard Moore). He\u2019s posturing, and Karen calls him out. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen you scared before,\u201d Karen notes. \u201cI kind of like it.\u201d Her bad-ass resolve, which the mayor doesn\u2019t appreciate (he chokes her for a beat before offering her a phone call), carries over into the latter half of the episode. Dr. Glenn (Margarita Levieva) gives Karen the same bullshit quiz she gave Swordsman (Tony Dalton). Ms. Page changes the subject to Murdock (this season has been hell on the Bechdel test), purring that his \u201ccomplications\u201d are hot. Glenn brings up the death of Karen\u2019s brother and asks whether she felt powerful after killing Wesley, and on and on their little game goes. Karen sneers, Glenn remains stoic even as Muse flickers in her periphery. That Karen ends the session with blood on her face suggests Dr. Glenn is well on her way to becoming Muse 2.0. (See also her conversation with Kingpin about self-control halfway through the episode.)<\/p>\n

Even as some of Born Again\u2019s spinning plates show no sign of stopping, \u201cThe Hateful Darkness\u201d zeroes in on the season\u2019s endgame. Fisk has turned Karen\u2019s \u201ctrial\u201d into a televised trap, which Daredevil, Page, and Kirsten McDuffie (Nikki M. James) wisely use to their advantage. Fisk praised Matt as a hero earlier this season, and now he\u2019ll defend Daredevil in the mayor\u2019s own kangaroo court, using the justice system he clings to as leverage against an enemy who has long made a mockery of it. Fisk\u2019s Anti-Vigilante Task Force\u2014Powell, North (Jeremy Isaiah Earl)\u2014are called to the stand, and McDuffie, emboldened by her backup, is warned against her theatrics by the judges, who say there is no jury to play to. \u201cAre you sure about that?\u201d she says, motioning to the cameras.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And, on cue, we pivot to Governor McCaffrey (Lili Taylor), who calls the attorney general to initiate suspension papers concerning the Red Hood Port. Fisk\u2019s time is done, she says, but their window to act is now. Yet Fisk has planned for this. Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) got it out of Mr. Charles (Matthew Lillard) that Kingpin\u2019s next big move is to ice McCaffrey. That\u2019s not all she tells Murdock before running off to her daughter: Fisk has gone rogue, and he won\u2019t stop until someone stops him. Turns out it\u2019ll take more than a splash-page finisher to the face and some gentle words<\/a> to put an end to Kingpin\u2019s reign.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Which, as ever, brings us back to Matt Murdock. I\u2019m struck by McDuffie\u2019s opening statement in defense of Karen Page and her vigilante resistance. She asks whether a vigilante is someone who defies the law in pursuit of their own definition of justice or a last resort for justice in a broken system that no longer upholds it. It\u2019s a damn good question and one Murdock has to be asking himself. There\u2019s little doubt he\u2019ll uphold the law when the time comes\u2014he\u2019s a good Catholic, after all, as his prayer to Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, makes clear. But what does upholding the law mean for a man who operates outside it? What happens on the day Fisk is brought to justice, should it ever come? First things first. There\u2019s a bullet in our hero, blood on the steps of city hall, and a mayor who needs to be removed with extreme prejudice.<\/p>\n

Stray observations<\/p>\n

\u2022 If I never hear the word \u201cvigilante\u201d again after this season, I will die a happy man.\u00a0
\n\u2022 I wonder what effect that gunshot is going to have on Hornhead next week as Born Again reaches its latest finale? Maybe more super support is in the offing?
\n\u2022 Mr. Charles confirms that Luke Cage (Mike Colter) is currently working overseas, \u201cdoing the Lord\u2019s work.\u201d I find it hard to picture Cage, hero for hire or not, working for Uncle Sam. Maybe we\u2019ll learn his motives next season.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Dr. Glenn: \u201cI like to think I have more self-control than that.\u201d Kingpin: \u201cBut you didn\u2019t.\u201d The not-so-good doctor has had some nice moments in this season\u2019s latter half. I\u2019m hoping against hope she doesn\u2019t end up in that Muse mask before the end.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Agent Nadeem shout-out! He was killed by Bullseye back in season three of Daredevil.\u00a0
\n\u2022 And say! There\u2019s Detective Brett Mahoney (Royce Johnson) from the Netflix days. It\u2019s not the splashiest cameo, but another useful tether to the past.
\n\u2022 It\u2019s nice to see Cherry (Clark Johnson) this week. I still don\u2019t like how the season sidelined him. But then, Born Again only gets one hour per week.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Josie\u2019s jukebox: Ron Davies, \u201cIt Ain\u2019t Easy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jarrod Jones is a contributor to The A.V. Club.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Of all the plot threads coiling around and through Daredevil: Born Again, the one I\u2019ve followed with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,348],"class_list":["post-635564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}